


A Hero Nonetheless

by longhairshortfuse



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, spoilers for ep59 - 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-16 12:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3487676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil saves the day.<br/>Shame he wasn't asked if he wanted to be a hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Queen Anne Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil gets a visitor and feels a strange compulsion to act instead of merely report current events.

Cecil smiled, a fresh memory of a very interesting conversation with beautiful Carlos in his mind and pleased at being able to send a new intern on a high profile mission – to report on the events in town and at City Hall where a pack of antiques rampaged, causing damage to property and danger to life. Antiques were dangerous entities. Let one into your home and soon your residence would be overrun by them. Cecil knew from folklore that antiques multiplied, wait long enough and everything you ever owned would become an antique, the story said. He wanted nothing to do with them. Hector would get a great introduction to life as an intern on this assignment.

A tap at his window took his attention from his broadcast schedule and script outline. He looked up and saw a familiar figure, but one he had forgotten. He smiled and waved the man in.  
“I have not seen you since…” Cecil frowned. “I can’t remember ever having actually seen you or known your name, but you are very familiar and don’t make me feel afraid, exactly, perhaps _apprehensive_ is closer. So I assume you are not an enemy at least. What can I do for you? Want to announce something? If you don't like the idea of talking to my audience, write it down. I can broadcast a statement on your behalf.”

The man smiled and spoke with a calm tone. “Actually I do have a few words for you. Here.” The not-exactly-unknown man held out a small piece of paper with smaller, neat writing on it. Cecil peered at the paper. He reached out his hand and took it so that he could hold it closer to resolve the tiny text. He frowned at his unexpected visitor.  
“What does it mean? _Save Dana Cardinal?_ I am happy to read it out for you if you want me to, but it won’t mean much to my listeners. I already appealed for someone to save the Mayor. Perhaps if you elaborate I can pad it out a bit and give it some context?” Cecil waited for a response.  
The man moved fast. He took the paper scrap back from Cecil’s hand. His other hand shot out and grasped the back of Cecil’s head by his hair, pulled his head so far back that his mouth opened and Cecil almost overbalanced. The man pushed the paper under Cecil’s tongue, let go, stepped back and waited.  
Cecil shook his head. “Mmm. Uh hmmm. Whummm?” He looked towards the man, looked past him as if he was transparent. He shook his head again then stood perfectly still, eyes closed, breathing steadying.  
Cecil opened his eyes, bolted through his studio door and ran down the corridor as the weather played on loop.

Cecil ran to City Hall. All around, citizens took cover, cowering inside shops and offices, barricading the doors against the attack of the antiques. In the street, a body writhed in pain, half-transformed as an escaped antique bit and pulled at its leg. Cecil slowed down to assess his surroundings properly. Creatures ran in packs, groups merging and splitting off in seemingly random directions. Cecil watched from the relative safety of an accountancy office doorway. Inside, he saw clerks cowering behind desks as a ferocious antique bared slavering jaws and growled with menace. He turned back to the activity on the street. He observed silently, watching the creatures’ movements.

They did not drift according to random whim. Although distracted by screaming, running shoppers, the antiques gradually converged on City Hall. Cecil ran on, grabbing the broken-off leg of a particularly fine Queen Anne chair to defend himself from brief random attacks as he pelted past the ferocious creatures.

He arrived at the steps of City Hall as the City Council staff ran out, shrieking and crying or with the stunned expression of shock. Cecil searched the faces as they passed him. The Mayor was not there. He grabbed a passing admin clerk.  
“Where is the Mayor?” Cecil shook the clerk’s shoulders and stared into their eyes. “Where. Is. The. Mayor.”  
The clerk wriggled free and ran away. Cecil pushed a path into the atrium and ran up the wide staircase to the Mayor’s suite. The door was barricaded with cardboard packing crates and parcel tape but through the glass-paneled door Cecil could see movement from within Dana’s office. He kicked the boxes out of the way and went in.

“Cecil!”  
“Dana! You’re okay! Thank the glowcloud. We need to get you to safety.”  
Dana made no sense to Cecil. "You can't be _here!_ You _can't_ be here! They'll... They can't know it was you! Hide!"  
A crash made Cecil spin around to face the doorway. There, teeth bared and ready to pounce, was the biggest, angriest antique Cecil had ever seen. Cecil barely thought. He launched himself at the beast, screaming as loud as his lungs allowed and waving his tastefully curved and scrolled chair leg in a threatening manner. His other hand clasped the regulation red and black fire extinguisher from the wall.

Cecil yelled at Dana _GO! NOW!_ and set about the antiques, alternately clubbing them with indiscriminate swings from the hefty chair leg and choking, freezing blasts from the carbon dioxide cylinder. When the asphyxiating gas ran out, he windmilled and walloped everything that wandered within range.

Cecil heard Dana pass behind him and felt her footsteps patter down the marble staircase, sensed the swish of the doors as she escaped and joined the rest of the evacuees in the square in front of City Hall. Cecil knocked out one more antique with a well-aimed throw of the empty fire extinguisher, sending it twirling through the air to make decisive contact with the creature's face, gripped his chair leg tight and ran down the fire escape to the side of the building. He edged around the masonry to the facade, scanned the square and registered Dana being safely bundled into the back of the mayoral stretch-Humvee.

Cecil closed his eyes, leaned back against the warm sandstone and breathed slow and deep. Dana was safe. He walked back to the radio station, wary of the occasional stray that still roamed the streets. He walked into his studio, only just aware of the figure that smiled at him, patted his shoulder, said _well done_ as he handed Cecil a paper cup. Cecil drank, dropped the cup, screwed up his face and spat. He cleaned up the mess with paper towel that he found on his desk, binned the damp paper and sat down, shaking his head just as the weather ended.

Cecil welcomed his listeners back and read the note in front of him.  
"A person of unknown identity..."

Cecil sat back, eyes closed as he felt the tide of relief that Dana was saved. Perhaps, if he ever found out who it was that fought off the antiques long enough for Dana to escape, he would say thank you.


	2. A good broadcaster never abandons their show.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what happened at lane five?

In his studio, cocooned from the world outside, Cecil felt warm. Safe. He spoke to his microphone as if addressing a friend. Sure, occasionally station management hinted that he told his microphone too much, but intern Maureen was pretty good at giving him little non-verbal signals from her producer’s booth next door, like frantically waving her arms and making sawing motions at her throat. Cecil gave a cheery wave in return.  
“…and then Carlos said… have I ever told you just how great it is being boyfriends with a scientist? He knows so much and is really patient with me when he tries to explain stuff to me. Anyway, Carlos said that… Oh, Oh I see. Listeners, I have to interrupt this important news from Carlos’s research in his otherworldly desert to bring you an even more important message from our sponsors.”  
Cecil played a pre-recorded advertisement and Maureen stuck her head through the door.  
“Cecil, Station Management would like less handsome scientist, more current events in this dimension. At least that’s what I think they meant when they sent a photograph of Carlos out from under their door a few minutes ago. It was on fire.”  
Cecil sighed and shrugged. “I can’t understand why they won’t let me so a show just about _Science in the Desert with Carlos._ I mean, it’s really fascinating stuff. Even the parts where I have no idea what he is talking about are interesting because it’s Carlos. Don’t you think?”  
Maureen rolled her eyes. “Cecil, I met Carlos and yes, he’s very clever and all, but... are you even listening to me, Cecil? Not everyone wants to hear about your love life on your show.”  
“But it’s science! Science is important! Ugh, I want to do science with Carlos so much it hurts.”  
Maureen muttered _I bet you do,_ rolled her eyes again and settled back into her chair. 

Cecil waited for the recorded messages to end. His eyes traced around the room and settled on two objects on the shelf above his desk. A thank-you card, signed multiple times with the name _Erika_ and a photograph he did not understand. A photograph of himself at City Hall, arms raised, wielding a club in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other, face twisted in demented anger, attacking wild antiques as Mayor Cardinal slipped past him.  
He frowned. A week before that arrived, a complete stranger thanked him over the telephone for some reason he did not comprehend, and his refusal to accept unearned thanks resulted in her calling him a jerk. That still stung a little, and thinking about her tone made him go red.  
Cecil reached for his phone. Carlos would know what to do, or at least what to say to make him feel less uneasy. A screech in his ear made him drop the phone. Maureen was yelling at him to get on with the show. 

Cecil sighed and leaned in to his microphone.  
_Listeners? We have disturbing news from the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. There is an ongoing incident in lane five, you know, the pin retrieval area where our community’s favourite scientist, Carlos… Truthfully, listeners, Carlos is my own favourite scientist and yours too by extension since I have no way of making a distinction between my thoughts, my perceived reality, my feelings and yours. Carlos is… Intern Maureen is waving at me and she is scowling. Hmm. Back to our story at lane five. You may remember from a previous show that the, uh, the, umm, the… the new owners of StrexCorp Synernists Incorporated paid for Teddy Williams to have lane five sealed as a defence against the denizens of that tiny city where my lovely Carlos… what? Ahem. Right._  
_It appears that person or persons unknown slipped in last night with heavy digging machinery and broke open the protective cover over lane five while everyone slept. Mmhmm, quite a task. ___  
_Listeners, I know I should be angry with the occupants of the miniature city because of the physical hurt they caused to Carlos and, by extension, to myself. But I find it easy to forgive, given that their atrociously violent action against the man who was, after all, trying to prevent Teddy’s militia from waging a war against them, resulted in that beautiful scientist reflecting on his life, and deciding that… Okay, Maureen, just stop that, Okay! The show. I am a professional reporter and I will report. Listeners, Intern Maureen has removed her headphones and left her booth making a hand gesture with which I am not entirely familiar. Perhaps if I describe it to you— She is holding a note against the other window of my booth. She is taping it to the window. It says… Umm... I don’t think I need to read it out to you, dear listeners. Thank you for that reminder, Maureen._  
_Where were we. Hmm. Ah yes, the inhabitants of the miniature city have escaped their tiny prison city under land five and— Listeners? There is someone else here, knocking on my studio door. Could it be? Could it..? The tiny civilization brought him to me once, listeners, could they… Oh. No. It’s you. Um, come in. Do you want to talk to my listeners? You seem to know your way around well enough. Have you been here before? Let me just take you to the weather._

Cecil frowned at his visitor. “You have been here before, I know that somehow but I can remember absolutely nothing about it. How can I help you today?”  
The man smiled back. “I do have a message for you, Cecil. Look.” He held out a note. Cecil stepped back as if the man had offered him the pointed end of a knife. “Read it, go on. They are only words on paper. When did words on paper ever hurt?”  
Cecil stepped back as far as he could in his small booth but the desk got in his way. The man stepped forward, pushing Cecil’s chair out of the way, held Cecil’s head and forced the note into his mouth, holding Cecil’s chin up until he stopped struggling and scratching at his face. The man stood back and straightened his tan jacket. Cecil shook his head, muttered _Nononononono_ and ran out of the studio. 

The Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex was in uproar. The Sheriff, armoured by his balaclava, wraparound shades and vocoder, flapped at the barrage of minuscule projectiles that almost reached him. Three shimmering beings, tall with wings, shielded the Sheriff form most of the missiles while the secret Police formed a ring around their leader and hit out at anything that came within reach. Cecil ducked past, narrowly avoiding an intimate meeting with a studded piece of two-by-four wielded by an over-enthusiastic cadet, and onto lane five, quashing feelings of unease at stepping on the lane surface in non-approved footwear.  
More and more tiny citizens streamed out of the opening in the concrete cap, screaming in high voices that hovered around the upper limit of frequency for the man who worked in headphones all day and was of an age where the tiny, fragile hair cells in his cochlea really couldn’t take much more abuse.  
Cecil barely registered the devastation. He picked up a lump of concrete, pulled aside and discarded in lane six, and used seemingly superhuman strength to heft it into the gap, partially sealing the underground city from the bowling alley once more. He added more and more rubble to the pile until he had a mound like a cairn over the entrance to the underground city. Around him, the Secret Police kicked and swatted at any creature below knee height.  
The rebellion did not last. Teddy Williams was distraught. Cecil passed him on his way out, hearing but not comprehending his despair at yet another rebuild. 

Cecil switched from the pre-recorded weather segment to live broadcast. He looked at the booth next door to see Maureen glowering at him. Cecil smiled and waved.  
_Listeners, good news! Intern Maureen has returned to her post! I have high hopes for Maureen, she is our most… enduring intern and, if she can grasp that a broadcaster of important news never deserts their show for personal reasons, she will make an excellent radio journalist in time. She certainly has a compelling voice and is confident about sharing her opinions. But that isn’t the good news I intend to convey to you, listeners! No, not that either, I am afraid, there is not a handsome scientist standing in my studio right now. No, the Sheriff is safe! During a fierce and entirely unprovoked attack by the inhabitants of the miniature city on our revered Sheriff, who just happened to decide that a trip to the bowling alley was the ideal way to settle any promotion decisions within the ranks, just as it looked like the Sheriff might lose the battle and capitulate, turning Night Vale over to their thumb-sized counterpart, a mystery person of average stature but impressive strength and speed stepped in and sealed the pin retrieval area of lane five, preventing any more minuscule marauders from swelling the ranks of the tiny, attacking army. The Sheriff’s Secret Police and Teddy Williams’s militia corralled the remaining escapees from the disproportionately dangerous underground city in the ball return chute and… Oh. I don’t think you need the full details but they won’t be bothering anyone else._  
_Now, another word from our sponsors. Maureen, my arms hurt can you…_  
Maureen rolled her eyes at Cecil and sighed. She checked that the recorded advertisements were playing and her microphone would not broadcast live and spoke. At length. 


	3. Sand, blast.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a golem attacking Mayor Cardinal and Cecil gets a familiar visitor.  
> Familiar enough to make him afraid.

Cecil frowned. Intern Maureen would know what to do but she was absent. He rubbed his forehead with the effort of trying to remember why but the knowledge fluttered around his consciousness and wouldn't land. "Can you repeat that?"  
The new intern sighed. "The tapes from part one, Mr Palmer, they are all blank. I can't tell you any details at all about the incident at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley, only what you have reported and what's in the special edition of the _Journal._ I don't know how she gets the news out so fast, but in her editorial, Leann Hart said a _mystery hero_ saved the Sheriff. There's a blurry photo. Here."  
The intern held the page up against the glass window separating the producer's booth from the Voice's studio. Cecil rubbed his eyes again and tried to make out who was shown wielding a large piece of concrete. But the subject must have been moving too fast. Their face was blurred. It was a figure, neither tall nor short nor fat nor thin.  
"Ugh. Can you call Maureen in for me today?"  
"Sorry, no, Maureen doesn't work here. She quit, remember? Handed in her resignation after your last show and worked out her notice period."  
Cecil blinked a few times rapidly. "Oh. Yes, now I remember. How could I forget something as important as that? Thank you, intern... umm..."  
"Hannah, Mr Palmer. Intern Hannah."  
The previous show ended and Cecil smiled at his microphone.  
_There is no part one, this is part two._

\---------

Cecil frowned when he scanned the note the intern handed him. He knew Professor Kip, Carlos invited him to the lab a couple of times and Professor Kip invited Carlos to be a guest speaker at college. He remembered thinking how great it was that Carlos, an interloper, was making friends apart from himself. He remembered being a little jealous that Kip and Carlos laughed at jokes he did not understand. Cecil read the news about Professor Kip's archaeological find in the desert and subsequent behaviour with well-hidden alarm. A friend of Carlos's had raised a sand-golem which was now attacking the Mayor. Dana was in danger again.  
Still, he was a reporter, here to relay the news, not become the news.  
A tap on the window a few feet from his face brought Cecil out of his introspection. He smiled and waved his visitor in. 

Cecil counted down on his fingers as the man entered the booth. _... three... two... one..._ Intern Hannah gave a thumbs up and Cecil removed his headphones.  
"Hello, good to see you... again. I think." Cecil frowned. "You seem so familiar, yet... Look I'm sorry, this is so embarrassing. I know I _know_ you but I have completely forgotten your name!"  
The man laughed. "Oh don't worry about it. I wrote it down for you. Here." He held out a piece of paper for Cecil to see. Cecil, confused by a sudden feeling of alarm and unexpected panic, shot out of his seat and tried to barge past his visitor, yelling _NO! NO! NONONONO! NOT AGAIN!_ But the man caught him, tripped him up, helped him fall safely to the floor and stuffed the paper in his mouth, stifling his cries of _please, no, please not again._

Cecil lay still for minutes, so long the man wondered if he had been too rough. But Cecil's limbs uncoiled and the man helped him to his feet, held the door and shook his head as Cecil loped off down the corridor. Inter Hannah stared at him. He popped his head into her booth and made eye contact.  
"Oh, hello, you must be Cecil's new intern. He'll be back. It is very important that you keep his show running until he returns. Do you understand?"  
Intern Hannah nodded.  
"Good. And you will have no memory of me. You will not remember that I was ever here."  
Intern Hannah nodded again.  
The man shook out the tan jacket draped over his arm, picked up his deerskin briefcase and left the radio station. 

Cecil jogged to City Hall, his feet on some kind of autopilot. By the time he arrived he was sweating and breathing heavily, but in a controlled way, as if his body was adapted for it. He went straight in, past the security desk without setting off the alarm and upstairs to the Mayor's office.  
"Cecil! Here!" Dana's muffled voice struggled out from the inner office. Cecil tried to enter, but his way was blocked. Someone had filled in Dana's office door with sand. Cecil dug into the sand with his fingers, tried to scoop it away but every time he thought he had a handful in his grip, the sand smoothed over again.  
The sand heap shifted and swirled before him. Cecil pushed into Dana's office behind it.  
"Dana, are you safe?"  
"Cecil, oh Cecil I am glad you are here. No, I am not safe. Help me, please Cecil. Help me again." Cecil watched as Dana tried to squeeze further back into her office, armed only with her deadliest stapler.  
"Dana, stay back! Stay safe." 

Cecil studied the hulking figure in the room. It was seven and a half feet tall, the colour of the desert sand wastes, shaped with two thick arms and tree-trunk legs. It moved stiffly, lurching from leg to leg in a gait that looked unsteady yet it failed to tumble. Its head, if that's what it was, was a ball with stone eyes, holes for ears and a small, slit mouth. On its forehead were symbols Cecil did not recognise beyond _aleph,_ having switched course to unmodified Sumerian early in the semester at High School.  
Not that the memory would have helped him, had he retained it. 

The sand-golem advanced on Dana. It used its blunt, fingerless arms as clubs, brushing furniture into firewood and knocking plaster off the walls to expose the laths beneath. Cecil looked around for a weapon. He hefted the chair reserved for Mayoral visitors. It was heavy and unwieldy and Cecil lifted it as if it were paper. He threw it at the golem's back where it gouged out a scar in the cemented sand. The golem turned. It swatted at Cecil, sending him reeling into the wall, before resuming its advance on its primary target.  
Dana gripped her stapler in her left hand and her cellphone in her right.  
"Cecil! Knock it down! Wikipedia says..."  
The sand-golem was within reach of the Mayor. It planted its feet shoulder width apart and raised both arms for its final blow, the strike that would see its mission complete and its purpose fulfilled. 

Cecil stared at the sand-golem's legs. They were like pine trunks, thick and strong. But not pliable. Cecil ran out into the corridor. In his memory there was an item that might help. Yes, there it was. He smashed the glass cover, setting off the fire alarms throughout City Hall and ran back to mayor Dana's office brandishing an axe. Cecil swung the axe at the sand-golem's leg, roughly where he might have expected to find knees. the golem ceased its advance, pivoted on its undamaged leg and toppled over backwards bringing down shelves and a filing cabinet to break its descent.  
"Pin it down, Cecil! I know what to do!"  
Cecil launched himself at the golem, aiming as high as possible on the golem's torso, holding it down with bodyweight enhanced by bracing his feet against the wall at a point higher than his shoulders and pushing down. It was a manoeuvre he never expected would work. Dana dived out from behind her desk and crouched by the sand-golem's head. She scraped at its forehead with her stapler and stood up, offering a hand to Cecil. Cecil took Dana's hand and struggled to his feet. Beside them, the golem collapsed on itself and returned to the unshaped sand that comprised the material of its form.  
"Cecil, are you okay?"  
"I think so. What did you do?"  
"I erased the aleph character on its forehead. It turned the word _truth_ into _death_ and the golem... kinda... died."  
"Huh. I hope you get all the sand out from your things."  
Dana smiled. "Thanks, Cecil. I miss...I miss the real you." 

Cecil walked back to the radio station in a daze. He sat in his booth and glanced across at... Intern what was their name again? He frowned. The intern motioned at him to put on his headphones.  
"Welcome back, Mr Palmer. Are you okay?"  
"Uh? Was I out? Where did I go? Intern... um... intern..."  
"Hannah. Out? Were you out? I don't remember. You have about thirty seconds. Want to do your own countdown and I'll go get you coffee?"  
Cecil nodded. "Mmm yes please, Hannah."  
Hannah smiled and slipped out of her seat to run to the break room, and try not to look at the space reserved with her name pencilled on a sticky-note on the wall. She put the coffee mug down silently by Cecil's elbow. He frowned and clasped the base of his microphone.  
"...what was I just saying?"  
Hannah saw a new note on her desk. She read it, frowned and shook her head. It made no sense at all, Cecil had been sitting in his booth, maybe had a rest break but certainly had not had time to run over to City Hall. Perhaps it was a joke, she would take it to Mr Palmer, he would read it and laugh and maybe later they would joke about it and she would summon up the nerve to call him _Cecil._


	4. Fire fighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Mayor's Office and a certain five-headed dragon take matters into their own hands.
> 
> Cecil accepts the inevitable.

Cecil swivelled his chair to face the figure who entered his studio. “Hi, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Can I be of assistance? Do you need me to broadcast a message to the people of Night Vale?”  
The man did not speak. He smiled and held out a small piece of paper. Cecil took it, looked at it, frowned at the scrap in his hand and at the man standing in front of him. He sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for the inevitable. Nothing happened. Cecil opened his eyes again, stared at the man’s face under the brim of his hat and above the collar of his tan jacket and slowly placed the scrap of paper under his own tongue. The man stood aside.

Cecil left his studio allowing his swivel chair to fall to the floor, overbalanced and ignored. He was already running as he burst out onto the street in front of the building, heart pounding and breath heaving in his burning lungs. He ran as fast as he could sustain, slowing only to catch his breath a couple of times, aware of only one thought.

Save Dana.

City Hall was in uproar. Those who got out in time stood around the street corners opposite, watching and filming on their phones. The Sheriff’s Secret Police shooed away onlookers and turned back through-traffic and rubberneckers. The square in front of the impressive steps and imposing arched portal that Cecil knew led to a cool marble atrium beyond the security guards was busy with citizens attempting to get to a safe perimeter out of range of the sweeping radius of flame jetting out from first a green head then a violet one, taking turns to scorch anyone who strayed close enough to be classed as a threat.

The owner of the flaming jaws had three spare mouths to address anyone still capable of listening. Gold head spoke, with Blue backing it up with facts and figures. Grey scanned the area, murmuring directions at Violet and Green to aim the flame. Cecil stopped opposite, listening to Hiram McDaniels and looking for any weapon to use against him

_DANA CARDINAL IS NOT THE RIGHTFUL MAYOR OF NIGHT VALE! SHE WAS NEVER A CANDIDATE AND WE DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE HER STATUS. THE RIGHTFUL MAYOR IS ME._   
**_Or the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home, who was also a candidate but she would have lost any election she didn’t rig. Informal survey results suggested that a strong, reptilian, multi-brained individual was the frontrunner by a considerable margin._ **   
_There! Left a bit, greenhead, Violet, far as you can, two o’clock._   
_QUITE RIGHT THANK YOU BLUE-HEAD. NIGHT VALE NEEDS STRENGTH, NOT SOME LITTLE GIRL LOST FROM THE DESERT. THAT IS NO PREPARATION FOR THE CUTTHROAT WORLD OF LOCAL POLITICS AND SMALL BUSINESS MACHINATIONS!_   
**_Indeed, Gold head, Night Vale needs a mayor with strong mathematical and analytical skills. Ms Cardinal is very nice but niceness is not a positive trait in a leader._ **   
_PEOPLE, BEINGS, MY BLUE-HEAD IS CORRECT! A DESIRE TO "DO GOOD" WILL LEAD THIS COMMUNITY INTO CHAOS. NOW IS THE TIME FOR DECISIVE ACTION TO BRING THIS REIGN OF INCOMPETENCE TO A PREMATURE END!_   
**We will conquer City Hall! We will be Mayor! You human weaklings will bow before me! When we are Mayor there will be no place for such weak thinking! You will be devoured—**   
**IS THAT ALL YOU THINK ABOUT, GREEN-HEAD? OUR STOMACH? TRY TO FOCUS ON BEING A LITTLE MORE MAYORAL IN YOUR DECISION MAKING. WHAT WE EAT SHOULD BE A COMMUNAL AGREEMENT BASED ON—**   
_WHAT MY GREEN-HEAD IS ATTEMPTING TO CONVEY, IN HIS OWN WAY, IS THAT WE WILL SEEK TO STRENGTHEN THE COMMUNITY BY WEEDING OUT WEAKNESSES AND ENCOURAGING STRENGTH._   
_Please. Green, three o’clock. Violet, straight ahead then sweep left._

Cecil edged around the square, staying out of range of the fire. He retreated back to a parallel street and ran down it, shouting no warning as he pushed people out of his way. He turned a right angle corner and found the back of City Hall. Cecil followed the walkway beside the red sandstone building, close to the wall, in the shadows, until he was at the corner behind the five-headed dragon. Utterly silent, he crept around the front of the building, up the stone steps to the pillars by the huge wooden doors. 

He looked around. Cecil saw just to his right a pile of masonry, the remains of a decorative pillar that had suffered a tail-lashing from McDaniels. As the dragon announced his intention to enter City Hall and help the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In City Hall deal with Dana Cardinal, oust her literally from her mayoral throne and eject her from the building through whichever exit was most conveniently fatal, Cecil slipped into the building unseen. 

Dana, meanwhile, decided the safest place to be was far from the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Office. Cecil and the Mayor almost collided in the building's spacious atrium. Dana yelled.  
"Cecil! Look out! She's coming for me!"  
Cecil's warning was simultaneous. "Dana! Stay inside! There's a dragon hell-bent on—"  
Dana looked over her shoulder, twisting from the waist first left then right. "Cecil, I can hear her. I can _feel_ her. I know I am asking so much of you today, but please—"  
Cecil took Dana's arm. "I'm here to help you. I _must_ help you. Outside!" He pulled Dana toward the door and added, "The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Office is not out there. Hiram can come in and they will join forces. She can't exist outside the building." _As far as I know_ he did not add.  
Dana nodded and the pair ran to the doors, glad that the sturdy titanium revolving security doors were unsuitable for an eighteen foot five-headed dragon, although they were warped slightly where the seven-and-a-half foot sand golem had pushed in. Cecil thought he heard Dana mutter something about _need to get these replaced, can't have citizens unable to access local government facilities because of their particular species._

Even Cecil _felt_ rather than heard the skittering above them and behind. He did not look up or turn around. He certainly heard _and_ felt the barrage of small projectiles that bombarded them. Cecil pushed Dana in front of him, shielding her relatively slight form with his own relatively larger one. They got into the same part of the revolving door, Dana in front and Cecil protecting her back with his own. He stopped the door, causing Dana almost to trip as she slammed into the blast-proof glass divider between sections.  
"Cecil! We have to move!"  
Cecil spoke with urgency. "Let me get in front of you. If Hiram is waiting for us to come out I will buy you some time, maybe long enough to get away safely."  
Dana frowned. "But what about you? Who keeps you safe?"  
Cecil smiled. "I have someone, you know, you met him. He's not around right now."  
Dana made herself as small as possible against the axis of the door. Cecil squeezed past her and gingerly pushed the revolving door until he could slip out into the afternoon sunshine.

Hiram was still busy with fiery rhetoric. Cecil signalled for Dana to step out of the protection of the door.  
"Stay by the wall, use what's left of the pillars for cover."  
"Cecil, I am not an idiot!"  
"Sorry, Get ready to run."  
Hiram's grey head, watchful and listening, spun round and fixed them with a glare.   
_Violet! Green! six o'clo—_   
Violet head and Green head swung round in mirror-image movements from opposite directions to fix on Cecil as a piece of broken off masonry hit Grey-head, dazing him for a moment. Cecil yelled "RUN!" but Dana had a better idea. She stood slightly behind Cecil and helped him pelt the heaviest rocks they could lift at the dragon's five heads. Cecil focused on keeping Green and Violet busy dodging and shaking themselves. Dana knocked out Blue with a lucky hit on the snout and occupied Gold with a rapid-fire rain of brick fragments. Neither of them saw Grey-head recover and take a sharp breath in until it was too late.

"DOWN!"  
Cecil dived at Dana, knocking her physically behind a pillar and covering her body with his own as a jet of flame passed just over his back, charred and crumbled the stonework behind them. As grey head prepared for a second, more deadly accurate blast, Cecil scrambled to his feet, grabbed Dana by the back of her mayoral jacket, yanked her upright and dragged her, stumbling, around the side of City Hall to safety.   
Sirens sounded nearby as the remnants of the Sheriff's Secret Police poured into the square. Hiram lumbered off beaten for now, screaming vengeance. Cecil hugged Dana, a quick squeeze and let go.  
"You okay?"  
"Yes. Cecil, thank you again. I don't know what I would have done—"  
"Don't mention it. Ha. I know I probably won't. Can't believe I once had a _thing_ for that jerk."  
A black sedan pulled up and the back door opened as if of its own accord. Dana got in and looked up at Cecil.  
"Well, thank you anyway, Cecil. I am lucky to have a friend like you. I hope we—"  
The car door slammed shut and Dana was taken away from him.

Cecil walked back to the radio station, taking back streets as much as possible and staying close to shelter of the buildings in case of unexpected meetings with five-headed dragons. He arrived, sweaty and sore, slipped into his booth and found a bottle of water waiting for him. He drank half of it in one gulp, choked and spat out dust. Intern Hannah waved to him and he put on his headphones.  
"Fifteen seconds."  
Cecil nodded at Hannah, put his head in his hands as he leaned over his microphone and counted in his head.  
 _Here I am, listeners..._


End file.
